The+Affects+of+Language+on+Learning

In a country defined by education done in English, one can only imagine the hardships faced by students who do not speak English or those who speak a particular dialect of English that is sneered upon. If the student grew up in a home without much in the way of books or time to learn how to read, they will be behind in many ways in the classroom where there is an assumption that they should have a very particular level of comprehension when it comes to literacy. The student who comes from the household where they are one of the first who learned to speak English can easily find themselves on their own in terms of actually being able to not only just learn the language, but use it effectively as schools tell them to. This is a struggle with language that can stretch for years and it isn’t easily brought down to a non-issue. Years of practice are needed for a non-native speaker of English to gain full mastery of the language, if that kind of mastery is reached at all.

Due to the many dialects in the country, it is not unheard of for students to be looked down upon because of the way that they speak. In a study of accents across the country, it was the Southern accent that was largely ranked the lowest, even by native Southerners, showing that a stereotype still exists about the Southern accent being equivocated with lack of intelligence. States farther north tended to get the higher ranks in terms of perceived intelligence based on their accents, with Michigan receiving the highest marks. This ties in well with the concept of Ebonics, or African American dialect spoken across the states. It’s a kind of accent seen as being apart or even lesser than the “proper” Standard English, even though one kind of English is just as easy to understand as another. Students who have to deal with schools that equate these non-standard and lesser variations of English have to not only contended with learning the Standard English, but the way people put them down because they don’t speak it. It’s a huge point of contention for many, and there are many now who speak out in defense of these alternative English dialects as being just as valid as any other.

Moving on from even the way people speak, we look at the writing aspect of language, adding more to the argument of dialects and alternate forms of English. A student who writes “Carol be hungry,” might be seen as writing improperly in English, but if you were to take the phrase and look at it through the lens of the dialect it comes from, it makes more sense than it seems to at first. The “be” would likely be replaced with “is” or “was”, either of which could be turn the phrase into a statement that suggests that Carol is or was hungry at some point. When “be” is used instead, it implies a more permanent state, as if Carol is the type of person who is hungry all the time. Grammatically, the reflexive response would be to say that this is not Standard English, and perhaps it’s not, but it does make sense in its own way, conventional or not.

Things like text speak are also becoming a much more widely seen issue in school settings, with students actively using text lingo such as “@” for “at” in their writing. This worries teachers, as the USA comes from a long history of associating the ability to spell words properly with intelligence and overall literacy. What needs to be remembered, however, is that this habit of students to use their text speak in their writing shows that it’s a new code of language. Obviously, it isn’t Standard English, but nor is it inferior; merely inappropriate to be used in formal writing assignments. Code-switching, when a person goes from using one variation of language to another, can be actively taught in classrooms so that students can become actively aware of when it is and is not appropriate to use text speak or when they have to use the more formal variation of English in their writing. Literacy, in this sense, it not lost, but transformed into a new variation that serves to offer a new perspective on how language works and how it is used in a professional and personal setting.

__Artifacts__